Ehlana and Ethan:
Happy 17th Birthday, Nicole Johnson!
Congratulations to the Draper and Connor clans – it’s a boy!
Welcome to your Witch Falls family, Kris Draper!
Kris was born last evening – during our football game; so his parents did not make it to the game to see their cousin help his team to the big win over Hillcrest. Yes, Kris’ birth is more-important than a football game; but let’s not let facts get in the way of the entertainment opportunities! Aiden did have a good game with two touchdowns; so he can also claim major help to earn that victory and dedicate the effort to his new cousin. For the record, Mom and baby are doing well; they’re already home as we’re writing this update; and Aiden and I met Kris this morning while they were still at the clinic. Nicole is hopefully having a happy birthday, but we don’t have any details yet; and our only involvement was for the group family gift that was sent for her.
As for our own adventures so far today and last night, the football game ended in a convincing sixty-seven to twenty-six victory; Ethan had three of the seven touchdowns; and our team kicked six field goals while coasting to the finish line. Hillcrest scored two touchdowns and had four field goals – and their field goals mirrored four of our field goals in the second half despite their best efforts at a comeback. I’ll add that Ethan also had four defensive interceptions; and our defense played very well against one of the other top teams. Ethan hosted the victory party after the game; we both hosted our four best friends for the co-ed sleepover after the rest of our friends headed to their homes or elsewhere; and we stayed up too late while winding down toward the co-ed nap time. Tai Chi by the river was frosty with the temperature below freezing; we had a hot breakfast; and have been busy with a chores and pre-cooking day as we get ready for the holiday weekend. As mentioned, Aiden and I also did a visit to the clinic to meet his cousin; and we also did some of our chores at his house and at Cassie and Michael’s house; since they will be home next weekend. The Thanksgiving holiday pre-cooking is mostly about making up casseroles and other meal options, but we’re doing some baking too so we can cut back a bit on the bakery order. That isn’t a cost issue – Mom just wants to offer some of her own baking options for our family and guests. Ethan and Naomi also did some work outside of our house, but that was at her house and at two cottages while Aiden and I were busy with our to-do list. Sophia and Aaron moved on to their own plans for the day after breakfast, and while Ethan and I are hosting another co-ed sleepover tonight; they have other plans for tonight and we’ll only have Naomi and Aiden here with us for dinner and the rest of the night. We want to do that ahead of Dad’s week in the city; and he’s actually going to spend some time with us tonight after spending a lot of today prepping for that trip.
Cassie and Michael are a day closer to coming home, and they had a very busy Saturday in Nigeria. There might be some future readers that know Nigeria is the largest country in Africa and wonder why they’re only working there for a couple of days; and the short answer is that we already have extensive connections in the country for our businesses and charities; so the work they are doing can mostly be handled in and around the Capital without any major travel. Yes, they love getting to visit projects that we help with, but they’d need months of travel time to visit all of our partnerships and some of them have been around long-enough that we can trust that what is happening on the ground is exactly what is being reported to us digitally.
While Cassie and Michael are doing amazing work in Africa; we can’t say the same for ‘our’ national or world politicians. There isn’t good news to report from the top wars; so let’s cover a couple of national stories that happened yesterday. The first and bigger story was a major grounding of departures for all aircraft across the country due to a communications outage of the national system. That outage has affected thousands of flights and millions of passengers due to delays or cancellations of those flights; and we all found out that it only takes a few hours of down time to put our air transport system into chaos. Details seem a bit chaotic too; since it didn’t take long for the head of the Department of Transportation to blame the failure of old systems and demanding fifty billion dollars to replace the outdated infrastructure. As usual, our leaders will never let a crisis go past without exploiting it, but we’ll also mention that what might have actually happen is that a newly-installed upgrade for the system that already cost billions of dollars couldn’t mesh with the existing system and crashed the network. Blaming the old system is easier than admitting that the new one doesn’t work while trying to get access to billions more.
The other story we’ll cover is transportation-related too, and while details are still scarce; there were a lot of videos posted showing the tanker ship crashing into the side of a riverboat cruise ship that then sunk. There had been one-hundred and thirty people on the riverboat; and it is a small miracle that there doesn’t appear to have been any fatalities. There were more than thirty people injured, but it is still a miracle that everyone survived the crash and sinking.
Let’s stop with that good news. Ethan and I are ready for Naomi and Aiden; and now we’re going to help Mom with making dinner. We’re going to have a happy, quiet play night and hope that the rest of our weekend will be amazing.
Until next time, live with love, fellow Magi of the Light!
